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Head of OSCE PA observation mission: â€œFor many aspects the election process in Azerbaijan almost didnâ€™t differ from the elections in Germanyâ€

14 October 2013 13:47 (UTC +04:00)

Budva. Fuad Guubeyli – APA. “Basing my observations at 59 polling stations in Azerbaijan on the election day, I can say that the elections were well-prepared, for many aspects the election process didn’t differ from the elections in Germany,” said Head of OSCE PA observation mission, German MP Doris Barnett at the meeting of the Standing Committee on October 13 held within the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's autumn session in Budva, Montenegro, APA’s Europe correspondent reports.

Expressing her regret that in some cases, information about negative cases was based on unverified data of some NGOs, Doris Barnett stressed that in general, it is not right that the OSCE ODIHR unambiguously adopts all the data submitted by NGOs.

She said that 152 places were allocated for candidates’ campaign, observers only visited 52 out of them and their views on this were not included in the report.

Commenting on the remark that one of the candidates was given more airtime, Barnett underlined that on the eve of the elections in Germany, Angela Merkel was allocated more airtime than the other candidates in connection with her daily activity: “If we cite only our observations, everything was well-organized. In general, the methodology of OSCE ODIHR to assess the elections should be reconsidered. It is not right to approach the elections in Azerbaijan and Ukraine with the same criteria as in the U.S. and Germany. One should not condemn the recorded irregularities, but should help solve them.”